The Eternity Project

19

ERIC M. TAYLOR CENTER, RIKERS ISLAND, NEW YORK CITY



‘They ain’t the talkin’ kind.’

Ethan stood in a service corridor alongside Lopez as a duty sergeant signed them in and signaled a colleague sitting nearby in a small booth surrounded by bullet-proof glass. An electronic motor hummed as mechanical locks disengaged and a huge steel-barred door rolled open.

Located on an island in the East River between Queens and the Bronx, Rikers was a city of jails, with the Taylor Center, or ‘6 Building’ as it was known, housing all adult and adolescent sentenced males. It was one section of a total population of fourteen thousand inmates, all awaiting trial. As new arrivals, the two men they had come to see were housed in the New Admissions cells, where they were kept in a sort of quarantine until the results of tests for tuberculosis and other diseases came back from dedicated labs.

Ethan walked with Lopez onto D-Block, a high-security wing of the center dedicated to holding high-profile inmates. The block was deserted, the steel tables and benches bolted to the floor devoid of prisoners. All of them had been locked-down as Ethan and Lopez were brought onto the block.

‘We’re wasting our time here,’ Lopez whispered to Ethan as they followed the sergeant onto the block. ‘We should be looking for Joanna, not visiting deadbeats in jail. Jarvis is stalling.’

‘For what?’ Ethan challenged. ‘Keeping us out of the way won’t help our cause or his.’

‘That all depends on what his cause really is,’ she pointed out, and then looked at the sergeant. ‘They had any visitors?’ Lopez asked.

‘Nope,’ the sergeant replied, a burly man with a neck so squat and thick it looked like he’d dropped from between his mother’s thighs and landed straight onto his head. ‘No calls, no letters, no nothin’. They might be communicatin’ with their cellmates for instance, but we don’t see much of that in here as most cellies are strangers. Happens more in the prison population.’

Ethan looked at Lopez as they followed the sergeant across the block.

‘That’s unusual,’ he said. ‘Most all convicts would want to make a call or receive one.’

‘Unless they’re not expecting to stay long,’ Lopez suggested.

‘You kiddin’?’ the sergeant asked over his broad shoulder as they walked. ‘These two dudes were busted out on the Williamsburg Bridge, right? Caught red-handed. Ain’t no jury in town gonna bail them.’

A crescendo of whoops and catcalls rose from the tiers nearby as the population caught sight of Lopez striding through the block below. Ethan glanced up and saw ranks of dark faces appearing at barred cell doors, all stained teeth, jaundiced eyes and orange correctional jumpsuits.

‘C’mon up here, mama!’ shouted one. ‘I’ll let you cuff me, honey!’

‘Show us that touché, babe!’


Lopez glanced up at the incarcerated ranks above them, but she showed no indication of interest as she followed the sergeant through a door at the end of the block that led to a small corridor with three heavy security doors along one wall.

‘Are our guys held alone?’ Ethan asked, as the sergeant locked the door shut behind them.

‘No,’ he replied, and gestured to the farthest of the three doors. ‘They’re held in four-man cells, but your guy’s tests aren’t due back until this afternoon. They’ll go on the block overnight, then they’ll be on Twelve Main after that.’

Twelve Main was the high-security wing, where cells were walled with stainless steel to prevent the prisoners from ripping the toilets and sinks out to use as weapons. The sergeant walked to the farthest door and unlocked it, pushing it open as he led them inside.

Cuffed to a table inside were two men. One was a fairly mild-looking Caucasian of about forty years of age with shrewd, pinched features and quick eyes. The other was an enormous African-American with thick sideburns that lined his jaw like black scimitars and a shaved head and muscles that bulged from his orange correctional jumpsuit like brown footballs. Both men looked up at Ethan without interest, and then their eyes flicked to Lopez and stayed there.

The sergeant gestured to them.

‘James Gladstone and Earl Thomas,’ he introduced the two inmates. ‘Gladstone’s the big one, Earl’s the brains. Ain’t that right, fellas?’

Neither man responded, both still watching Lopez with hooded eyes. Ethan stepped forward, deliberately blocking their view of her as he leaned on the table. ‘Get a good look, boys, because it’s as close as you’re gonna get.’

Gladstone turned his dark eyes onto Ethan and spoke in a voice so deep it sounded as though it came from the underworld. ‘Un-cuff me, boy, and I’ll rip your head off your shoulders and shit down your neck.’

Ethan smiled. ‘Play nicely and you won’t get a month in solitary. Understood, a*shole?’

Gladstone strained against the steel cuffs, the metal cracking as it snapped taut. ‘Only thing keepin’ you alive is these chains. I’ll see you when I get out.’

‘Sure you will,’ Ethan said, nodding. ‘In about forty years, if you’re lucky. You’ll be able to throw your daddy diaper at me.’

Lopez walked up to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. Ethan slid into the chair beside her and looked at the two men as Lopez spoke.

‘Everybody can have their dreams,’ she murmured to Gladstone, ‘but we’re here on business.’

Earl Thomas spoke for the first time, his voice soft compared to Gladstone’s.

‘We don’t have any business with you.’

‘That right?’ Lopez asked. ‘Strange, seeing as you’re both looking at twenty-to-life without parole in a federal prison. In a couple of hours, your pre-trial arraignment will be the last chance you have to avoid that fate.’

‘Even stranger,’ Ethan added, ‘considering you don’t know who the hell we are.’

Earl smiled. ‘Cops, or at least you are,’ he said to Lopez and then turned back to Ethan. ‘You, you’re military, probably been out a few years.’

Ethan raised an eyebrow of genuine surprise. ‘You’re a smart man. Makes me wonder how you wound up in a place like this, being so clever.’

Earl said nothing in response, sitting with his arms folded in his lap, utterly unreadable. Ethan guessed that his big friend was considerably less well endowed with intelligence, and wondered briefly if they would be better served by splitting the pair of them up.

‘How’d you make us?’ Lopez asked conversationally.

‘This guy’s got army written all over him,’ Earl uttered. ‘Still fit, despite his age, and there’s something about the way you a*sholes walk, like some drill sergeant’s still got his boot up yo’ ass, ’mongst other things. As for you, honey –’ he smiled at Lopez – ‘I can smell a cop just as easy as I can smell a rotting corpse. They’re much alike.’

Lopez’s expression didn’t falter as she replied: ‘Didn’t do you much good on Williamsburg Bridge now, did it?’

‘What do you want?’ Gladstone growled, his huge fists bunched before him on the table.

‘Names,’ Ethan said. ‘Federal prosecutor may be willing to do a deal with you both, provide you reveal who you were working with.’

Gladstone leaned his big head forward, his shoulders bulging like boulders beneath the jumpsuit.

‘Ain’t no stoolie,’ he rumbled at Ethan.

‘You’re looking at spending the rest of your life in here,’ Lopez said, keeping her voice reasonable. ‘Forty years.’

Gladstone’s fearsome expression melted as he smiled at her, his teeth surprisingly white and his eyes sparkling with unexpected life as he replied: ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘You won’t get bail,’ Ethan pointed out, ‘ and neither of you will see parole. This is it, fellas. You either cut yourselves a deal or they’ll lock you both down and toss the keys.’

Gladstone glanced at Earl and the older man slowly shook his head.

‘Like the man says, we ain’t turnin’ for nobody.’

Ethan sat back in his seat thoughtfully. Maybe there wasn’t a brain behind all of this. Maybe it was Earl himself. But then why not try to create a character or finger an enemy for the bank jobs, at least try to get a break?

Lopez leaned forward on the table, her dark eyes focused on Gladstone’s.

‘You ever want to see anybody like me again,’ she purred, ‘you’re gonna have to fold now. No sense in cutting your nose off to spite your face.’

Gladstone smiled at her. ‘Ain’t my nose I’m thinkin’ of, honey.’

Lopez smiled back and then sat abruptly upright, cutting off Gladstone’s enjoyment. ‘That’s my point,’ she said. ‘You don’t talk to us now, all you’ll ever be doing is thinkin’ about it, so you might just as well cut it off. You opened fire on cops in the middle of a busy intersection and are up for half a dozen federal crimes. Life’s gonna mean life. If you ever get out of here, it’ll be in a wheelchair.’

Earl Thomas jabbed a finger at her.

‘We ain’t movin’, sweetheart!’ he snapped. ‘So you can save your pretty chatter for all the slack-jawed faggots back on the block.’ He looked her up and down, as though examining a vehicle. ‘Besides, I don’t do Latino.’

Lopez stood up, placed her hands on the table, and leaned closer to him.

‘You won’t be doin’ anything for the next forty years, Earl. You’re over, finished, history, except maybe for the young boys on your block.’

Earl cracked his cuff chains as he tried to stand, but the chains around his ankles kept him out of reach. He chuckled, his evil little eyes glittering at her.

‘Be seein’ you, missy.’

Ethan stood up and turned away from them both as Lopez spun to join him. The sergeant opened the door and followed them out into the corridor. Ethan waited until the door was shut again before he spoke.

‘That didn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘They’ve got no reason to cover for an accomplice and every reason to try to shorten their sentence.’

‘Maybe there isn’t anybody else involved,’ Lopez suggested. ‘Or they don’t know who it is.’


‘I figured that,’ Ethan admitted, ‘but these guys should be clutching at any opportunity to get out of this. They’re professional criminals facing life sentences – these people don’t have loyalty to anybody but themselves.’

Lopez looked at her watch and shrugged.

‘Well, they’ll be on their way to the courthouse within the hour for their arraignment. We’d better catch up with Karina and see what happens to them at the court.’